Five hundred years have passed since the combined fleets of humanity
met and broke the berserker armada at Stone Place. But through the
human victory was total, one of the killer machines--weaponless, its
star drive a ruin-- managed to limp to secret sanctuary on a planet
called Hunter's World. Over the years since then a new cult has
arisen there, a cult dedicated to Death as the only and ultimate
Good. For Hunter's World has become BERSERKER'S PLANET.

The rifle stuttered in Suomi's hands. The sword-brandishing golem's
left arm erupted in a spray of dry-looking particles and smoke as the
man-thing spun in an incredible pirouette, more graceful by far than
any wounded animal. Knocked off balance and deflected from its course
by the shock of the rifle's force-packets, the towering shape slid
past Suomi and on down the sloope.

But it did not fall. In another moment, near the bottom, it had
regained full control and stopped its slide. Then it turned and was
calmly climbing, like a mountain goat, at a fast run.

The dead man's voice was coming live and clear over ship's radio
into the ORION'S lounge, and the six people gathered there, the only
people alilve within several hundred light years, were listening
sttentively for the moment, some of them only because Oscar
Shoenberg, who owned ORION and was driving her on this trip, had
indicated that HE wanted to listen. Carlos Suomi, who was ready to
stand up to Schoenberg and expected to have a serious argument with
him one of these days, was in this instance in perfect agreement with
him. Athena Poulson, the independent one of the three women, had made
no objection; Celeste Servetus, perhaps the least independent , had
made a few but they meant nothing. Gustavus De La Torre and Barbara
Hurtado had never, in Suomi's experience, object to any decision made
by Schoenberg.

The dead man's voice to which they listened was not recorded, only
mummified by the approximately five hundred years of spacetime that
stretched between Hunters' system, where the radio signal had been
generated, and ORION'S present position in intragalactic space about
eleven hundred light years (or five and a half weeks by ship) from
Earlth. It was the voice of Johann Karlsen, who about five hundred
standard years ago had led a battle fleet to Hunters' system to
skirmish there with a berserker fleet and drive them off. That was
some time after he had smashed the main berserker power and
permanently crippled their offensive capabilities at the dark nebula
called the Stone Place.

Most of the bulkhead space in the lunge, was occupied by
viewscreens, and when, as now, they were adjusted for the purpose,
the screens brought in the stars with awesome realism. Suomi was
looking in the proper direction on the screen, but from this distance
of five hundred light years it was barely possbile without using
telescopic magnification to pick out Hunters' sun, let alone to see
the comparatively minor flares of the space battle Karlsen had been
fighting when he spoke the words now coming into the space yacht's
lounge for Schoenberg to brood over and Suomi to record. Briefly the
two men looked somewhat alike, though Suomi was smaller, probably
much younger, and had a rather boyish face.